I AM IN BRAZIL!!!!!
Just got off a 10 1/2 flight of 5,308 miles traveling 33,000 feet above the air at approximately 587 miles per hour ground speed. The thermometer also said it was -57 degrees Fahrenheit outside.
Sao Paulo is HUGE!!! Approximately 19,000,000 inhabitants, including the surrounding suburbs.
Very excited to get to the airport. No one speaks English, and if they do it is very broken. I can navigate around okay by reading signs, but that is all. The presence feels very distant, blocked off and cold, but I only think that is because of all the mixes of ethnicities and the absence of unity. Several people have come up to me and started a conversation or asked a question, but I do not understand the language enough to comprehend what they are saying.
I have four hours to ponder life. To think, to muse, to wonder.
I'm sitting on a little table as close as I can to the fresh outdoors and sunshine.
Funny how much of a revelation it was to me that, though I am another continent away, though I am in another country in a different land with different people, I sit under the same blue sky. The same son. There are trees and vegetation. There is oxygen and a breeze. Cars and people, city noise and food. Though I am in a different place, in another part of the world, it is the same. We are the same. We are all human, with the same basic needs, and no matter WHERE on this planet you go, you will always find the same blue sky. The same son. The same moon, the same oxygen and water, edible food, modes of transportation, people speaking, noise of society, smells and fragrances and odors, ways of developing and harvesting... The universal world is one and the same while being diverse in the execution of same necessities.
5:00 PM
I am still here. One more hour!! I would love to go about and explore, but because I have the cart with the luggage it makes it difficult to run up and down stairs and peek around corners.
I bought one purchase when I first arrived, some Brazilian bread and strong espresso, but I forgot to call my credit card company and tell them I was traveling, so they have frozen my Visa. :'( Now I am hungry without any means to get food.
Almost time for my last flight!!! So excited!!
6:40 PM
As soon as I finished writing earlier, I went back to the check-in place I had gone before, and got in line for my boarding pass. 15 minutes later my bag was checked and I had my boarding pass and gate number. Thank You Jesus! :) I then proceeded to get on the elevator to go down a floor, but when the elevator doors opened, my boarding pass AND passport flew out of my hands and dropped just over the cracks in the floor where the elevator goes down. It was a panic moment, but thank you Jesus I retrieved them before they fell through the crack.
I went in circles a few times before I figured out where my terminal was, then I had to walk quite a ways to get there. Thankfully I had roughly 3 hours before my flight, so I didn't have to run. :) Because I was so early, I was able to get through security in a matter of minutes, and got to my gate! But then, I didn't see my flight listed anywhere. I got worried, and asked a few different people if they spoke English. No bueno. After about half an hour, I finally just handed my ticket to the lady next to me, and pointed to the flight screen. She understood the dilemma, and went to talk to an airport employee for me. A few minutes later she returned with my ticket and the gate number crossed out with a new number written. Aha! So I said thank you and went to find the new gate number, which wasn't too far away. Three hours later I boarded the flight and was on my way. :)
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| Sao Paulo |
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